


In Another Life

by peterpandesal



Category: Aldnoah Zero, Aldnoah.Zero (Anime)
Genre: Gen, Post-Series, because slaine is nothing if not angsty, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-03-23 10:04:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3764023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterpandesal/pseuds/peterpandesal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Slaine Troyard toiled on as a prisoner. Hypothetically.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Another Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ali my child](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ali+my+child).



> (you will notice that he will keep crying)  
> (how things would've been if asseylum was a bit less of a dumbass)  
> (they should call him mitochondria since he's the powerhouse of that cell)

* * *

 

They pass a patch of sunlight that has intruded through the window. He pauses his walk, the guard behind him. A shadow swiftly passes across his face, the shape of a bird—a gull, to be exact. A black-tailed gull, one of the many species of birds that this planet to which he originally belongs owns. This Terran planet called Earth.

_Terran._

That was what he was called when he was still in her service, tutoring her all that he knew about his home planet—the sky, the sea, the creatures, the birds. But even when his title Terran was coupled with unflattering adjectives or titles, he didn’t mind, so long as he was with _her_. His savior, his reason to live, the person he loves the most.

But in the end, even _she_ turned against him.

Nonetheless, he had forgiven her for that, though she doesn’t know. He gave her the benefit of the doubt; she was oblivious to what transpired during the nineteen months she was unconscious, having not the slightest idea that all that was happening when she awoke had been for the lower tier in the hierarchy of Martian feudalism and for _her_.

 She doesn’t even know that he’s still alive. Not yet, at least. He’s still here, flesh and blood, pain and agony, suffering the consequences of his crimes, his sins, that were done all out of love.

But despite of how much he wants this life to end, they wouldn’t allow it. He’s encased in a glass cell because he’s on suicide watch, even. Once, he suspected that they brought him here because they want to punish him with something far worse, far greater than death—to bear alone the anguish of the planet he nearly destroyed, the loneliness of being the mastermind of a thousand deaths, the isolation from the world, rotting in his own hell.

“ _Why did you save me?_ ”

“ _It wasn’t me. It was Princess Asseylum._ ”

_Save him. Save Slaine Troyard. Save him from the chains of misery._

He wonders when he will ever stop crying.

“What are you looking at? Walk.” the guard behind him says, and, with one last look at the window, he smiles. Maybe things will get better.

In another life.

 

\--

 

“Eat. That’s what Lieutenant Kaizuka said.” The warden says to him, with an irritated look on his face—the expression he’s been bearing with every day. “Don’t think we’re going to force-feed you, Slaine Troyard. If you want to die, at least think of more honorable ways than starvation.” And the warden walks away, leaving him alone to his loneliness again.

He stares at the tray of food set on the floor. They’re still feeding him well despite of what he’d done: waging war on Earth, hell-bent on launching a full-force attack. But still, these people show him mercy, and even have the compassion—if compassion be it best called—not to kill him. Then he remembers that it’s not really kindness, the reason why he’s still here, alive and breathing. It’s because of the word of one person. The one he’s spent most of his life wanting to be worthy of, the person he waited for, and somehow, somewhere inside him, still continue to wait for.

And then, for the first time in weeks, he picks up the tray, sets it on the table, and eats. The guards that are on shift glance at him, and are apparently stunned. And for a moment, he even catches one of them smile, content that their captive is cooperating. _Maybe he’s realized that starvation is an embarrassing way to die._

He could laugh at the thought. Maybe? Yes, probably so. He had escaped a thousand deaths in the battlefield of Terran soil and the combat zones of the Interplanetary War II. And all that would kill him is lack of nourishment?

He actually cracks a smile. His death will come in a different form. Not self-inflicted, not even in the battlefield. He will die with honor, with forgiveness, with peace with himself.

In another life.

 

\--

 

“What’s this?” he raises a brow at the delicacy before him. “Isn’t it too late for the celebration of throwing me in here?”

“We’re not celebrating anything.” Says the pokerfaced, brown-haired boy, settling the cake on the table. “Visitors need to eat.”

“But you’re not a visitor.” He snickers. “You frequent here.”

“It’s not me.”

He’s surprised. A thousand ideas race in his head, but they culminate into one thought: if it’s not Kaizuka Inaho, the only person who ever visits him, then it must be the one, the only person he’s always wanted to see again. A painful kind of excitement is set ablaze in his chest, as his heart rate increases. His princess. His sunshine. The love of his life.

But oh, how _even more_ surprised he is when the flaxen-haired royalty is not the one he sees entering his cell. Rather, it is _another_ princess—the one bound to a chair, the lame one who could walk only in almost-zero gravity surfaces. It’s not _her_ , but still, the pink-haired princess is also enough to take his breath away.

He chokes back a sob. Her hair has grown a few inches now; her features are sadder, older, much like the impression he gives himself whenever he looks in the glass.

“ _Hime-sama!_ ”

The invalid actually rises from her seat, breathlessly crying out his name, and affords three shaky steps before he’s kneeled before her, and she’s caught in an embrace.

“ _Slaine, Slaine, Slaine_ …”

“Princess Lemrina,” he cries into her hair.

“I missed you so much, Slaine…” she looks up, her blue eyes shining with tears of mingled grief and joy.

“It’s been so long,” he swallows the painful lump in his throat. “So, so long…”

“I got here as soon as I knew you were still alive,” she says, so fondly, so lovingly stroking his hair that has also grown long now. “Are you alright? Do they treat you well?”

“Yes, your highness,” he nods, lower lip quivering.

“Slaine…” a tear rolls down her cheek. “Will you come back to Vers with me?”

His gaze drops, landing on his lap. “I’m sorry, but…I’m under their custody. Besides, I’m a Terran. This is where I truly belong,”

She looks like she has something to say in return, but instead swallows down her argument. So she settles for a mere, “But then, I would have no home.”

“Vers _is_ your home, your highness.” He smiles, realizing that it’s not only him who needs to cope with some hard truths. He tries to put weight on his words, though they both know the truth. “You may always see me if you wish. Come visit,”

“But,” She squeaks with a sharp _hic_ , and sobs on his chest, wetting his shirt with her tears. He holds her by the back of her head. “It’s _not_ the same, Slaine. It’s been _so_ long but I _still_ miss you. Why did you send me away from home, Slaine? Why did you destroy the Moonbase? Why… _why did you try to kill yourself?!”_

“I’m sorry, princess…”

“You know where my home is. Why did you take it away from me?” she holds his face with both hands, pain spilling over the edge of her tone. “ _Why did you take yourself away from me?_ ”

“ _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…_ ” he embraces her, and cries harder. “ _I’m sorry, princess. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Please forgive me…”_

The guards see the two cry together, and, as the warden later admits to Kaizuka Inaho, they were pretty moved. No one has witnessed misery and pain so raw, in that prison.

Later, the princess is escorted out, but not before her kissing Slaine Troyard in the mouth and promising him that she will come visit again soon, with Sir Harklight. The prisoner is delighted to yet another lachrymose point.

Kaizuka Inaho enters the room after the princess has gone off. “How are you?”

“I…I’m fine,” he says timidly. “How did she know that I’m here?”

“Asseylum-sama told her.”

 _Asseylum-sama_?

Seeing that Slaine Troyard doesn’t seem to have any more questions, he starts making his way to the door.

“If she knows I’m here,” Kaizuka Inaho is halted at the threshold. “How come she never came to visit?”

A second passes. Two. Three. A suffocating kind of silence looms in the room for a long string of seconds. He waits.

“She has her reasons.” Kaizuka Inaho answers, and goes out.

He’s about to say something else but then realizes that it’s all jammed up in his throat. Whether she has forgiven him or not, perhaps he’ll never know. It’s been more than a year, and now there’s peace between Mars and Earth, but apparently not between them.

He lies supine on his bed, facing the ceiling, thinking about the last time he felt this light. He never realized how lonely he’s been till he saw Princess Lemrina. He falls asleep, then, and his dreams take him to the time he would give anything just to relive again.

“ _These are called birds, your highness_.”

“ _They’re beautiful!_ ”

“ _Birds are winged creatures. They come in different sizes and colors. While most of them can fly,  there are some who can’t_.”

They confabulate about the matter, and it’s so happy, it’s almost real.

“ _Today I will visit Earth_ ,” she says to him. This scene feels so painfully familiar, but something surprises him: something that didn’t exactly happen; no, he’s certain this isn’t how it went. “ _Will you come with me, Slaine_?”

He’s incredulous, but immensely humbled. “ _It would be my greatest honor, your highness._ ”

She smiles, her green eyes forming crescents. “ _Let’s go watch the blue seas and skies together_.”

That’s where the dream ends.

He opens his eyes and feels something wet on his cheek. He touches it. It’s a teardrop.

Then slowly, slowly, a smile spreads across his face, as the teardrop is followed by another one, and another one. He puts a palm on his right eye, pushing, squeezing down his tears, as if that could do something to stop their flow. Maybe that was how it should have happened.

In another life.

 

\--

 

 There are no pleasantries exchanged whenever he comes to visit him. The soldier merely checks on him— _checks if he hasn’t killed himself yet_ , but for one astounding occasion, Kaizuka Inaho compliments him that he’s gained weight.

“I’m glad that you’re eating your meals. The warden has stopped complaining.” He says, with his usual poker face. Really, Slaine thinks, this guy seems to be deprived of the entire spectrum of human emotion. He stands up, making his way to the door. These brief visits are the least—and apparently all—that he can do for him.

“Do you people have a plan of freeing me?”

The other boy glances over his shoulder. “That’s something indefinite yet.”

“What…what do you mean?”

“To the general public, you’re already dead. Your death was the catalyst for the Earth-Mars friendship. Which means that in this cell, in this prison, there is no Slaine Troyard.”

_No…Slaine Troyard?_

“Which reminds me,” the boy walks back to him and places something on the table, and goes on his way. “You’ll know what to do.”

It’s a small, silver-shaped prism, about the size of his palm. He presses the only button on the contraption, and its circumference glows green, much like those machines with Aldnoah technology.

It startles him when the prism shoots a huge ray of light, and it hits the wall to his right.

“ _Is this thing on?_ ” a pale-faced, green-eyed, flaxen-haired girl steps back from his view, and sits on a chair. _There she is_. More regal, more powerful, more beautiful than he saw her last.

He gasps.

“ _Hello, Slaine.”_

He crawls, slowly, closer to the wall. “Hime-sama…”

“ _This is a recording from right here, in my office in the Moonbase. We rebuilt it after the war. Though most of the base was destroyed, some parts were still recoverable.”_ She pauses, her face becoming more serious, albeit the smile still lingers. _“I know what you’re thinking, Slaine. But I want you to know…it’s all good now. Vers and Earth are friends. We now coexist together. The first Aldnoah Reactor is now functional; I took part in its activation a few months ago. And you know…all these may not have been possible if you hadn’t taught me all about your wonderful planet_.”

He chokes back a sob, clutching his chest.

“ _Things have been a little busy here, Slaine. I hope you understand why I couldn’t visit you,_ ” she says. He has waited for so long to hear her say his name once again. “ _Are you in good health? Have you been eating well? Inaho-san told me that the warden was complaining because you weren’t eating your meals. Please take care of yourself, Slaine. I want…I_ need _you to be alright. Do it for me, Slaine, please?_ ”

He doesn’t know why, but laughter bubbles from the pit of his stomach, and it comes out of his mouth. Amidst the continuous stream of tears, he tells the screen, “Yes, yes! I will, _Hime-sama_!” all the while in a groveling position.

 “ _I know things were difficult, and came to a bad end. I once promised Inaho-san that once all of it was over, we would still be friends. And now, I want to say the same thing to you, too. I hope, that one day, you’ll come back as the Slaine that was my friend. I’ll be waiting for you, Slaine. Lemrina misses you,”_ She wipes a finger across her eye. “ _I miss you._ ”

His grip on the hem of his shirt tightens, crumpling it more and more. He laughs as he cries, cries as he laughs. His laughter turns into howls and reverts, until his sobs choke the breath out of him that he coughs.

“ _Oh, one of the Knights seeks an audience with me, Slaine. I’m sorry if this will be too short. Please remember what I said, Slaine._ ” She smiles in the screen. His hand reaches out. He wants to be with her. To touch her. To give her a thousand Terran charms that could ward off evil, just to protect her. But he sees, that she hardly has any need of him now. She has transformed from the fragile princess of his childhood to the empress that will rule her people with idealistic notions and diplomatic negotiations. She has no need of him, because he made her like so. “ _Until then, I will wait for you. Goodbye for now. I hope to see you soon_ , _Slaine._ ” then she does one last wave at him before she shuts the video down.

He hastily grabs the prism on the table and hugs it to his chest, swearing aloud that he will do as she’s said.

That night, he sleeps on his bed curled up, still embracing the contraption that he treats as a heaven-sent a gift for him. After the initial joy had gone past, the loneliness and grief sink in again, reminding him of his regrets. He could have been with her. He could have been with her right now. See her smile, her laughter, and he could teach her the things she has no knowledge of yet. Perhaps by some miracle, he could even have the right to ask for her hand. But _no_ ; he can never do that. Because in this life, he is trapped here in this glass prison. In this life, he’s doomed for this damnation that he himself caused. In this life, he doesn’t deserve her.

But maybe, just maybe, if he were reborn, either a Martian or Terran, he would deserve her. He would be with her without any conflict. They would be under different circumstances. In another chance, in another time.

In another life.

 


End file.
